Description
'How many times have I written to that wretched asylum office, pleading for help? Each time, they respond with the same non-answer: I must continue to wait'In her hotel bedroom, Batool Haidari is lying awake. Black mould is stretching across the ceiling. Next to her, the children scratch their heads in their sleep. They have headlice; she can't afford shampoo. In the corridor, a woman wails. A demonstration builds beyond the hotel gates. Men are shouting - there is petrol in the air. Batool's family has lived here for two years. They must now remain inside. When Batool fled to Britain from Afghanistan in 2021, thought she was leading her family to a better life. Instead, they have found themselves stuck in a permanent waiting room: waiting for an answer to their asylum claim, waiting for news from home - waiting for the promise of safety. Now, she tells the story of Britain from behind the closed doors: the friendships forged in uncertainty, the lives suspended by bureaucracy and the irrepressible will to survive. Intimate, urgent and deeply humane, this is the unforgettable account of Britain's asylum system told from the inside.